Good and Bad Traditions

Elder Steven R. Bangerter's recent General Conference talk speaks about family traditions, especially the types of traditions that bring families closer to Jesus Christ and each other:

Consistent, wholesome family traditions that include prayer, scripture reading, family home evening, and attendance at Church meetings, though seemingly small and simple, create a culture of love, respect, unity, and security. In the spirit that accompanies these efforts, our children become protected from the fiery darts of the adversary so embedded in the worldly culture of our day.

This protection is important largely because of other traditions, often social or cultural traditions, that tend to tend to do more harm than good. Many societal practices are common in modern society, but violate God's commandments, drive away the Spirit, and do incredible spiritual harm.

Take drinking for example. Drinking is an incredibly common practice in most cultures, but it has a terribly negative impact on those who engage in it. Drinking alcohol weakens people's self-control, making them easy targets for temptation. Drinking is certainly one of Satan's many fiery darts.

Society has many bad habits like that. Smoking, gambling, body modification, casual sex, and abortions are all fairly common in today's society, and they all cause people to turn away from God. Satan uses bad habits to influence people and pull them away from God. If we want to resist and maybe even reverse that trend, we need to defend ourselves and our families with good habits and strong, positive family traditions.

Raising a family in today's world is a frightening prospect, but we can protect our family from the evils of our day by using good traditions to counteract them. That has, to a large extent, protected me from many of the world's evils. I don't drink or smoke or engage in extramarital sex, and I'm sure that's at least partly because I was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints. I'm sure that I would have at least tasted alcohol by now if I wasn't a member of the Church, and, social awkwardness aside, who knows what my dating life would have been like if I were following the world's standards instead of God's? I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm sure I would be a much worse person if I hadn't been raised in the Church. These traditions have protected me from much of the world's influence, and they can protect others, too.

When it comes to habits, practices, and traditions, we can fight fire with fire. We can fight the bad habits of society with good habits of the Gospel, and we can counter the wicked traditions of the world with the good traditions of the Church.